To link to the entire object, paste this link in email, IM or documentTo embed the entire object, paste this HTML in websiteTo link to this page, paste this link in email, IM or documentTo embed this page, paste this HTML in website

Oral History Collection
To read the transcript and listen to the audio of this interview at the same time, first download
the pdf of the transcript by clicking on the link at the top of this screen. The
transcript will open in a separate window. Next, select the option to the right of the
screen.
Special Collections
Musselman Library
Interview with
Marylin Humphrey
Interviewer: Alex Polanchyck
Interview Date: April 29, 2010
1
MARYLIN HUMPHREY, Oral History
I am sitting in the living room with Marylin and Marcus Humphrey who live in the
Gettysburg Lutheran Retirement Village on 1075 Old Harrisburg Road Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania, Cottage #168. Interview starts at 2:30 p.m.
Alex Polanchyck: So I want to start when you were little and I just want to ask what your life
was like growing up on a farm in Kansas.
Marylin Humphrey: Well, I didn’t really live on a farm that long. I said I was born at my
grandparent’s home and we lived there while my dad was still going to college. Two years of it
that he was in college at Kansas State, my mother went to school there and they had me, and they
took me along [to school] and they had a daycare like it is today, the Home Ec department at
Kansas State had child care, and that’s where they could put in the daytime and whoever got out
of class first could pick me up, and then when my dad did graduate college we moved to
Woodward, Oklahoma and that’s where I started school, so I was probably five or so when we
moved there. Living on the farm, my grandmother and grandfather had a lot to do with taking
care of me, while my mother was teaching school, I’d say the last two years of my dad’s college,
in country school and we just lived in my grandparents’ home. I just remember some things
about it; my grandmother used take me places with her. It was very rural, we lived about two
miles from this little town called Liberty, and it was just a wide spot in the road, it was ten miles
away to Independence and Coffeyville, which are probably the size of Gettysburg. My
grandmother belonged to the church Ladies Aid we called it, she had a friend down the road, a
mile or two, this was in the farm, and she had a granddaughter about my age, in the summer
time, this granddaughter would visit my grandmother’s friend and we’d play together. One time,
this is a funny thing, my grandmother, her friend would come and bring her granddaughter over
2
and we’d go outside and play and they’d visit and have coffee or tea, and after her friend went
home, my grandmother went out to gather the eggs, and I said, “well you don’t need to get any
eggs, there aren’t any eggs in there now,” and she said, “what? What do you mean?” and I said,
“well, we’d made mud pies and we went in and put these eggs in the mud pies because we said
our husbands were sick and we needed to put egg in their mud pie.” Now isn’t that awful
[laughs]. My grandmother was good to me; I don’t think she’d probably scold at me.
Polanchyck: So you were close with your grandmother?
Humphrey: Yeah, pretty good and my grandfather too. He’d take me walking through the
pasture land. They raised cattle. That’s basically it, then when we moved to Oklahoma that’s
where I started school and I do remember some things about it, living in Woodward. I’d say the
population would be like close to what this is [Gettysburg]. That’s where my brother was born
and we lived in Woodward. I remember they had two theaters in town and it was all of ten cents
to go to the movies.
Polanchyck: $.10! I wish it was $.10 still!
Humphrey: Right! One time, because this was bad times, the Depression, people didn’t have
any money or anything. One time I remember if you brought an empty fruit jar to the movie
theater you could get into the movie theater and that was the pay to go to the movie. They
collected fruit jars because they were trying to can fruit and meat and stuff for people that didn’t
have any money. Nobody had any money. Farmers didn’t have good crops, the crops were bad,
and it was dry, no rain, dustbowl days and stuff like that, but that sort of sticks in my mind, that
we did that.
Polanchyck: Were your grandparents directly affected by the Depression, working on a farm?
3
Humphrey: I don’t know, they might have been, but I certainly didn’t know that they had any
particular problem, because they had cattle and they butchered the cattle and they had pigs and
they butchered them and everything, and my grandmother always had a garden I remember
going to that and she’d be hoeing in the summer time and do that, and I’m sure she did a lot of
canning. They had a cellar, it wasn’t finished off, dirt walling, but you went down from the
outside to it and that’s where they put their canned goods, their green beans, tomatoes. My
grandfather bought the farm, I don’t know how long it took him to pay for it, in 1899, in 1999
my cousin who still lives on the farm and her husband, it had been in the family a hundred years
so she put together a reunion and it was a lot of fun. A lot of cousins, we only had one living, my
dad had two sisters and three brothers, there were six of them and the youngest sister was still
alive, she was only one of the siblings, she lived outside of Tacoma, Washington and her two
granddaughters brought her to this reunion. But I say, thinking about if they had a hard time,
evidently they survived. My grandmother, she had one brother who had never married and he
died fairly young, when I say young, I mean in his 40s or something, and I don’t know how well
off her parents were, she probably inherited some money from them, from her parents and what
her brother might have had, I don’t know, but, they seemed to survive.
Polanchyck: So you don’t recall food rationings, specifically?
Humphrey: I don’t think, they [grandparents] maintained a home, and seemed to be able to buy
groceries but a lot of it was of their own doing, you know like I said, canning and so forth like
that too but, certain things you’d have to go buy. I guess, thinking back on this thing, they used
to make soap on themselves, you know laundry soap and they did a lot things like that. I think,
people on a farm did more for themselves than people in town, don’t you think? [Mrs. Humphrey
talking to her husband, sitting in the room with us]
4
Marcus Humphrey: Right!
Humphrey: More self sufficient I think too, they didn’t have the store to go to and lots of times
the stores didn’t have the things you have now, you have a hundred choices of soap when you go
in there of laundry soap, you know you go in there and you think now which kind is the best?
[laughs] Whether you want to get this kind or that kind. My mother always talked about it, it
didn’t upset her, I’m sure she wasn’t really bitter about the thing but she said, that between she
and my father that’s the way they got through college. He didn’t have help from his parents, they
earned it all themselves and that’s why she taught school, he taught school one time too, he had
went to what was probably like a junior college in Pittsburgh, Kansas then I say mother, she
went two years to Kansas State and then they needed more money to keep my dad in college so
that’s why she went back and taught country school and lived with her in-laws till he got out of
college. I can’t think that we’re really destitute, but I do know my mother learned to sew and I
never had a store bought dress until I got out of high school.
Polanchyck: Wow.
Humphrey: My dad bought her a sewing machine for twenty-five dollars and she was self-taught
and she got to be a really good seamstress. So you know they made do with what they
had. I guess, you know. I don’t think we were poor but we just didn’t have a lot of extras
particularly but that’s the way it is, you don’t think back on if you thought you were starving to
death or if you didn’t have anything to go buy something. We always had things given to us for
Christmas and birthdays and so forth. When you’re a kid it doesn’t seem to bother you that you
don’t have all the amenities that people do. I have a feeling there were people that had money of
course, but then, you know everyone was kind of floating along in the same boat. Are you
asleep?
5
Marcus Humphrey: No! Why!?
Humphrey: Don’t go to sleep, and wake up in a hurry. You think that you suffered before the
war?
Marcus Humphrey: Oh yeah! Same way.
Humphrey: Right. So I don’t mean to take all your time talking about one thing.
Polanchyck: No, but I want to get back to your schooling though, I know you said you moved to
Woodbridge…
Humphrey: Woodward. Woodward, Oklahoma
Polanchyck: Woodward, Oklahoma and was that in middle school?
Humphrey: No, that was where I started school.
Polanchyck: Oh, that’s where you started school
Humphrey: Yeah, I went to first grade there and I think it was probably when I was in fourth
grade we moved to Nebraska.
Polanchyck: Did you notice a difference in moving from Oklahoma to Nebraska, like economic
differences or community differences?
Humphrey: No, I guess not. We lived in Blair, Nebraska which is on the Missouri River, just
twenty-five miles, north of Omaha and I don’t know, we seemed to survive. My mother belonged
to a Home-Ec Club I remember, I want to say like a county agent, but they had women that come
out and teach you things, cooking classes and things like that she took that and I don’t know they
had a swimming pool there and I remember my dad challenged me to learn to swim, which I did,
but I took swimming then in high school, because him helping me do it wasn’t like regular
swimming classes. But I don’t think we lived any differently than we lived in Oklahoma. Things
might have you know gotten better. Of course my dad had a good government job, for the
6
Department of Agriculture. He always had income, too; it wasn’t like when he was in practice
when he was depending on people to call him to do veterinary work for them.
Polanchyck: So he did the veterinary work before the Department of Agriculture?
Humphrey: Yeah, right!
Polanchyck: How did he get into the Department of Agriculture?
Humphrey: Well, I said when we lived in Woodward. That’s where he went when he graduated
from college, set up a veterinary practice. He had gotten his degree in veterinary medicine, he
passed the boards, whatever they had to do then, but as I said, this was the dustbowl years, it was
no crops and everything, and people didn’t have money, they couldn’t pay him for his veterinary
work. I remember there were two dairies in town, one on each side of town, and he did all their
veterinary work and we got all the eggs and the milk and the cream we wanted and that was his
pay basically, the money he made. I remember mother talking about somebody paid him with
canned goat meat and probably we ate it, I don’t know [laughs]. So he can say that things were
bad, he wasn’t making any income, then he applied and got a job with the Department of
Agriculture then he TB tested cattle all over the state of Oklahoma for a couple of years I guess it
was. Then he finished that and that’s when we moved to Nebraska because then he went, he was
still with the Department of Agriculture but they worked with poultry up there and we lived there
[Nebraska]. He sort of covered a county there and then he finished that county so we moved, not
exactly the next county but it was not too far from there, to work that county. I remember we
wanted to move to the county seat, which was West Point, Nebraska but they couldn’t find any
place to live so we chose Wisner and that’s where we lived then. Then we moved from Blair to
Wisner and went to school there and that’s where we were living when the war started in 1941.
Polanchyck: Ok and then when did you move to Rapid City?
7
Humphrey: When I was a junior in high school.
Polanchyck: What caused the transfer?
Humphrey: Well, because my dad was always interested in public health work and he applied to
get into public health work and he was accepted and they sent him back here to Bethesda,
Maryland for six weeks training and it was like a regional office was Kansas City and they had
places that they sent him and I don’t know how many states it had covered, and they sent him to
Rapid City, South Dakota. The war had started, to the public health office there and I can
remember there was a man that tested for water, they had nurses and doctors and he was like
food inspection, like going into restaurants and checking whether they were preparing foods and
doing the right thing. Then I say, in fact I don’t know whether you say drafted in to the army but
he had been in ROTC in college and he kept it up and he stayed with that so consequently they
called him up, he didn’t ever go out of the country but they sent him to a lot of different bases,
some of them were air bases, some of them were regular army bases, over the country. Well, we
didn’t try to follow him around because he might be someplace for six weeks then he might be
someplace for six months or something.
Polanchyck: What did your mom do while he was travelling?
Humphrey: They left there [Rapid City, SD] I stayed there with a family to finish my junior
year of high school. They arranged for me to finish high school and my dad’s mother, my
grandmother, lived where I was born and was dying of cancer. So my dad decided, and his
youngest brother that their wives should help take care of her and so he bought a house in this
little town called Liberty and moved my mother and my brother down there first, then I stayed
and finished my junior year in Rapid City and then I remember that I took the train from there to
Wisner, Nebraska where we lived and my uncle who lived on the home farm, he drove up there
8
and got me and took me down there so that summer, I was there in Liberty, and then I went my
senior year to Coffeyville High school. It was ten miles away because they did have, of course
they didn’t even have an elementary school anymore, but they did have a high school there but it
was very small. I think the class would have been smaller than your class (talking to Mr.
Humphrey) because he went to small town in Nebraska, and what did you have? 31 or 32 or
something in your high school class?
Marcus Humphrey: 30?! I don’t think we had that many!
Humphrey: I thought one time there was a list of them or something, but anyway! It was a small
[school], Liberty had a school but my mother and dad, they thought I could get as good an
education as a bigger school. Coffeyville would be like going to Gettysburg High School. So of
course, we lived ten miles away and I remember they arranged, they had two big oil refineries in
Coffeyville and there was a man that lived on a farm outside of Liberty, but he worked at one of
those and we paid him ten dollars a week and he would come in and pick me up and take me to
school. And I can’t remember, but he must have let me off at the high school or else I walked
from downtown to the high school, so I knew people but I never got involved to the social strata
of high school.
Polanchyck: Was it hard to make friends moving around so much?
Humphrey: Oh yeah! I mean being a senior in high school I didn’t go to a senior prom, I don’t
even remember going to any of the football or basketball games. Because I mean at 4 o’clock I
would meet up with him and he’d bring me home and that was it. I’m on their mailing list [the
high school] there’s somebody that’s in that class, and he’s got my email address, I gave it to
them a long time ago, that was a mistake! But he’s always sending me stories and he’s very rabid
Republican he’s always you know, knocking Obama or something [laughs] and he had a
9
classmate who just passed away a couple of weeks ago in Missouri, he was on our email list, and
we get these emails, and I said to him [her husband] that you had a Republican friend and I had a
Republican friend and not that you know it matters, but I just you know delete them, delete them.
I never respond to them. I think this fellow has kept up with all the class and it was pretty good
and I can’t tell you exactly how many were in the class but there must have been a couple of
hundred of us and he’s always telling you about somebody passing away. It’s just kind of
interesting to -
Polanchyck: To keep up with it?
Humphrey: Yeah, right! It’s just fun to hear this kind of stuff. Once in a while, I might respond
and say thanks for something he might send. My husband wrote a story about his service and he
did ask for your book, I think we sent him one, you know about his time in the service [her
husband] but he was much about how it was fun, he didn’t talk about all the horrible things that
happened when we were fighting the war.
Polanchyck: When you were in high school what were your thoughts on the war? Were you
scared at any point?
Humphrey: Well no, not really I guess, I just remember when I graduated from Coffeyville,
Kansas high school, I can’t remember whether it was a weekend or during the week and it was
day time and it was outdoors like at the stadium it wasn’t a real big stadium and I remember my
mother and my aunt and my dad going to the graduation and as soon as it was over a lot of the
high school kids went right into service, cause you know the war was still going on and a lot of
them got their diplomas and jumped up and whoopee and away they go. They were going to be
sent some place, you know it might by the army, the navy, the air force and away they go. So
that was graduation.
10
Polanchyck: So it wasn’t unusual for you to experience that? It was just a way of life at that
point?
Humphrey: It was just a part of life, when I was younger, my grandmother died in February I
think it was, anyway it was spring time, and then the war was about to wind down, so my dad
decided that he wanted to go back to practice again, that he liked Wisner and there was a
veterinarian there that wanted to sell his practice, so my dad bought it. So, after I got out high
school we moved back to Wisner. In that year my mother had my sister, and she was born in ’43.
In November of ‘43, so we moved back to Wisner to live and then when my dad got out of the
service and I remember I didn’t know what I wanted to do, I thought I wanted to go into nursing
and they had what they call Cadet Nursing Corps, that’s when the government paid for you to go
through nursing school and so I applied for that but I couldn’t get in. They had two classes a
year, September and February, and I was too late for the September class in ’44 so in order to do
something, I went to one semester of college at Wayne State Teachers College which was about
20 miles away and I went up there and lived that semester, but then I got accepted for the
February class and that’s when I started. I went to Omaha to the University of Nebraska School
of Nursing. And then the Cadet Corps, the war was over so they took it away but they still if you
were in the program got to continue, they didn’t make you pay.
Polanchyck: The government paid for it.
Humphrey: Yeah, right. I mean my parents could have paid for mine and everything but they
said as long as the government was paying for it, you might as well go do that. I remember,
‘cause it was a mid-year class, in February, we only had was it 21 or something in the class, and
the one gal, her father was the doctor in Omaha and they were going to pay for hers, they didn’t
want her to take, cause I guess they thought she was going to behooving to the government, but
11
they didn’t [the government] you know take you into the service and become an army nurse, but
they paid for her, but she never finished training, in fact we had three, that’s why I said there was
21 of us, there was three in a room, and she and my other roommate, the three of us roomed
together, but she had a boyfriend that was in the service and he came home and that was it. She
got married, and somewhere I found a little piece of her wedding announcement and we never
basically heard from her again, I don’t know, maybe talked to her on the phone a few times, but
my roommate that she and I finished training together we still are in touch, and she lives in
Littleton, Colorado so we email and they’ve been here and we’ve been there and seen them so,
we’re still in touch with each other but this [other] gal, who knows where she is [laughs]!
Polanchyck: Did you want to be a nurse after high school?
Humphrey: Yeah, I was interested in it and my dad thought that was a good thing to do that. So
that’s what I did. So finished training and I met him [her husband] in Omaha and then we got
married then I helped him go through school and we went to Kansas State. I worked at the
student health at the college down there. It was kind of a funny thing, we had a trailer house,
which my father had bought, and it was a brand new trailer house.
Polanchyck: When did he buy the trailer house?
Humphrey: When we had started college and got married, because the college had a trailer park
and you could park your trailers out and we paid fifteen dollars a month or something, very
reasonable, for electricity and water, for something like that.
Marcus Humphrey: It had three rooms and bath.
Humphrey: Yeah, that’s what he called it, we didn’t have a bathroom in it but they had a-
Marcus Humphrey: A central house!
Humphrey: Central house, where if you didn’t have bathrooms-
12
Marcus Humphrey: You had to go down there to go.
Humphrey: Yeah, the men on one side, the women on the other then they had a laundry room on
one end of it, but this trailer park where there were other students and the couple right next door
to us, she was a nurse and worked at the student health and they had been there already a couple
of years, he was in agriculture and he became a vocational agriculture teacher and they were
native Kansans they grew up together and went through high school together. Anyway, she was a
nurse at student health so I applied for work there and of course they had a list, and they worked
five days a week Monday through Friday and Saturday mornings, just till noon. And the student
health had a twenty bed hospital, that sometimes kids would have to be put in the hospital if they
needed, otherwise they came in through the student health with their colds and injuries or
something. I put my name in to work there and one Saturday morning this one nurse got sick and
couldn’t come so they called and asked me if I could come work that half day, which I did, and
then she couldn’t come back Monday so they had me come Monday, then this went on for two or
three days, I said it was the longest half day that ever went, but they hired me then full time so I
worked the whole six years we were there, at the student health. It was kind of nice because this
couple, course he graduated before he got out of school [her husband] but we did things as
couples do together. Maybe on Sunday take a ride in the country and go eat someplace or we’d
play cards on Saturday night or something, that’s the way it worked out.
Polanchyck: OK, so you worked six years in the student health, what did you move onto after
those six years?
Humphrey: I didn’t really do any nursing because he graduated and my dad still had this
veterinary practice and he asked him [her husband] to come work with him. So he did, so we
moved back to Wisner and that’s where our daughter was born, in 57’. He graduated in 55’ so
13
when she was born two years after we were there, and we lived there until - let’s see, you went to
work for the government, she started kindergarten I guess in Tecumseh, didn’t she?
Marcus Humphrey: I think so.
Humphrey: Yeah, because when he started working for the government and my dad sold the
practice. Well no, we stayed one year and the fellow that bought it from my dad, Mike stayed
and worked for him for one year then you went into to work for the government and they sent
him to South East Nebraska and we lived in Tecumseh which is about the size of Wisner and
they had a Campbell Soup processing plant there, where they brought in chickens, process them
and so it started the inspector there and he went on the road for a while and travelled to Missouri,
Nebraska, Kansas didn’t you? He got sent to MIT for graduate school for poultry inspection and
so we moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. We lived as I said in glorified camping because we
had just got an apartment near the public transit, the MTA they call it or something? And if the
weather was good he would ride his bicycle down to Cambridge to MIT, otherwise you could go
over and get on the bus.
Polanchyck: Was that a transition for you?
Humphrey: Well, we just had this apartment and there was this elementary school just down the
street and that’s where our daughter started kindergarten and she went there for the year and it
was just half day. I’d walk her down the street to the school and then I’d be down there when she
got out. We got this apartment and it was just a one bedroom so we got a bed and we slept on a
hide-a-bed in the living room, I packed up dishes and sent them back there and we got a T.V. and
this hide-a-bed and a couple of chairs, a table and chairs that we used to have a galley kitchen
about like we do out there (points to their kitchen from the living room) and that’s what we did.
Then when he finished there we went back, first they said they were sending him to Philadelphia
14
to live, but then we went back and they said they wanted him in the Des Moines regional office
which is where he was, that’s where our daughter went through the first grade there.
Polanchyck: In Des Moines?
Humphrey: No in Tecumseh, because that’s where we just left our house locked it up and left.
We didn’t take anything. But the regional office was Des Moines and that’s where he had to
report to and started travelling those states out there and our daughter was in the first grade then
in the fall when she went into second grade that’s when we got sent to Washington D.C. so that’s
when she started, in November when we moved back to Washington. You came first [her
husband] , he drove out here and started looking for a house to live in Fairfax County, Virginia
then when he found something, nowadays I guess the government workers will let the wives go
along and help find a place to live, but then, he did the picking which was okay, he did okay! He
flew back to Nebraska to drive us back here [Humphrey and her daughter], we had two cars and
he drove a car back here. I don’t know where he’d been staying, in a room in Arlington, Virginia
and that was it and we lived there until 1988 then we came up here [Gettysburg]. He really
retired in ’81, then we moved just to get out of the Washington area, just getting tired of the, it
had gotten bad and it’s gotten worse right now [laughs]! All the traffic. Just not used to that.
Driving in all the traffic and I think it is more expensive living too, everything is up there.
Polanchyck: When your daughter was going through elementary school were you working?
Humphrey: No, I never worked again. A couple of times I did some private duty. I never
worked in Virginia because I never got my license [nursing license]. I kept up my Kansas and
my Nebraska license then they got to the place where they expected you to go back and do your
refresher courses and stuff. Well, you weren’t always in a situation where you could do that. I
figured I was better off at home when she was born [their daughter] and going to school when
15
she started the second grade there, to be a stay at home mom, since she was our only child. Be
available for her and so forth. She had to be bused to school, even when they changed schools. In
second grade, she was in one elementary then they built another one and she had to finish her
elementary there, even bused them there, they didn’t walk over. As I said when we lived in
Wisner, for family and friends, I did a little private duty but, nothing to talk about. When I
finished working at the campus at Kansas State, which was basically the end of my nursing. And
I say when you had to start, in order to renew your license to take refresher courses, it wasn’t
always convenient. You would have to pay something and you had to find somebody to get a
credit and all that. Just let it go [laughs].
Polanchyck: So when you moved from Kansas to Cambridge, Massachusetts what was that like?
Was that hard for you to transition?
Humphrey: We were living in Nebraska when we moved to Cambridge.
Polanchyck: Was that different for you?
Humphrey: No, no because basically it was like a nine months thing for him to do and I say she
was in kindergarten and we made friends with an army captain or colonel but they didn’t live
around us, but we kind of made friends with them because they were taking the same classes and
my daughter made a couple of friends at school, one gal we visited back and forth. Maybe they’d
come over and visit us and the kids would play or we’d go to their house and play. We spent our
time, when he didn’t have to study we would see New England, because we thought we’d never
be back there again. So on a weekend or holiday time we’d go into Maine, New Hampshire,
Vermont down to Connecticut and Rhode Island and western Massachusetts. We saw a lot of
things for that and enjoyed it and took advantage of the fact we lived there and could see these
things you read about and we did have company at times. My sister came once, my dad came
16
once and these friends that are still good friends of ours, they came and they’d come and we’d
drive down to Cape Cod or just take them downtown Boston to the Freedom Trail they call it.
We’d ride the MTA and go down there [downtown Boston].
Polanchyck: Did you like living up there during the time that you were?
Humphrey: Oh yeah, I mean it was just kind of like a vacation and we’d read up on things to
see. We’d go down to see old sterburts village or mystic Connecticut, down to Rhode Island,
Cape Cod. Tried to see the things they are known for, so it all worked out for us. I think our
daughter, that’s what got her interest in history; her forte is history so maybe it rubbed off on her,
doing those things! [Laughs] I have talked too much, just tell me to shut up!
Polanchyck: Oh no! I do want to ask you though; you have a younger brother and a younger
sister, growing up were you close with them and are you still close with them? Are you a tight-knit
family?
Humphrey: Oh yes, we’re close. My brother lives in Billings, Montana and we do see each
other and talk on the telephone and then my sister I talk to a lot of times. We talk at least once a
week and she is the one that lives in De Moines and is seventeen years younger and everything.
She has one daughter who lives in the Kansas City area, in Olathe, Kansas. My grandchildren
have gotten very attached to her and her husband [her sister]. She has two grandchildren, who are
four and six, but my granddaughter is getting ready to fly to Kansas City tomorrow and spend a
week with her, this is her Spring Break. And this is the third time she’s done this, every other
year. My sister invited her to come out and her grandkids love her [granddaughter] because she
entertains them and the little boy who’s six is always like “when is it we are going to the airport
and meet Libby, I can hardly wait!” Last summer they came back here and visited my daughter
for a week then this year probably my daughter and the two grandkids will go out there [Kansas
17
City] and stay with my sister. We stay in touch with each other and we have never had any
falling outs with them at all. Like some people don’t have anything to do with their brothers and
sisters. Do you know any people like that?
Polanchyck: Yes [laughs].
Humphrey: Or am I stepping on your toes? [Laughs]
Polanchyck: No, no. I do know what you are referring to though [laughs]. So you are close
which is good.
Humphrey: Yeah, I mean I have a friend who has a younger brother and sister who live down in
the Washington area and she never has anything to do with them. Never sees them for any
holidays, I don’t even think she talks with them. I think that’s pretty bad. She has a grown
daughter and son who each have, and the daughter has two girls and the son has one boy and of
course they do things as a family because they aren’t that far apart. I mean that they can’t get
together, it’s not like California or something, I just think you might look to your brother or
sister one day for help on something. But that’s her prerogative, I can’t say that. I think that
probably growing up, my mothers’ family, you know I said she was one of ten, and my dad was
one of six and they always were close and kept in touch with each other. Usually summer time
they would have a family reunion, my mother’s would be in Nebraska because that’s where they
lived and my dad’s would be in Kansas where they lived. So I guess it’s kind of like what your
family does that you follow along. They always were in touch either calling each other or writing
each other, or having summer time having a family reunion as much as they could. And as many
as they could would come home cause they lived all the way from Washington state to Michigan
and Colorado, so they didn’t all end up in the same town, none of them really did except my
dad’s brother. His youngest brother, the baby in the family, that’s how the farm is still in the
18
family because he stayed on the farm and took care of his parents and never left home. He went
through high school but he never went to college or anything and now his daughter.
Polanchyck: So the farm is still in the family.
Humphrey: Yeah, right, right that’s what I said.
Polanchyck: Okay.
Humphrey: That’s why I said my grandfather bought it in 1899 and then in 1999 it was in the
family a hundred years that’s been 110 years.
Polanchyck: Who lives there now?
Humphrey: My uncle’s oldest daughter, she and her husband.
Polanchyck: Do you ever visit?
Humphrey: No, except when they had this reunion, but she does keep in touch with me. She
writes to me, or always sends a Christmas card and everything too. My uncle had four girls and
she’s the one that stayed there and the other girls live not too far, one in Topeka, Kansas then one
over in Missouri then another one near her in Kansas. I went back when they had this hundredth
anniversary of it being in the family, which was fun. So many of us came from California, Texas
and Georgia and Colorado and so they planned it well. We were at the farm and stayed in motels
around there except my aunt stayed on the farm. My cousin wanted her to stay out there because
it was her home where she grew up. They had a picnic and were out there and they took us on a
hay ride. Then the next day, at the elementary school which became a senior center, in this little
town we had a brunch in there. And people that knew different members of the family came in
there and dropped in to see us. I mean they did a good job of it; she and my cousin that lived on
the farm with the couple of cousins that lived close by planned it all out for us to be there. I flew
out to Kansas City and my sister met me there and she and her husband and my niece and I we
19
drove down there. It’s about a three hour drive down to where they live. So I always think back,
I’m glad I did it, you know?
Polanchyck: Mhm.
Humphrey: I think back on it, my brother had driven from Colorado, he and his wife had driven
down cause they were living in Colorado at that time. So I think everyone made a big effort to
come and be there. You got acquainted with cousins you knew, but their children. So it’s one of
those things that make you feel good.
Polanchyck: That’s nice.
Humphrey: Yeah.
Polanchyck: Let’s see what else -
Humphrey: I didn’t offer you something, would you like a coke?
Polanchyck: I’m okay, thank you, I really am.
Humphrey: Or a glass of water? What other questions do you have?
Polanchyck: Did you have any chores while you were growing up? Anything related to farm
work?
Humphrey: No I don’t think so. My dad usually, wherever we lived, we usually had a garden
and he’d want us to maybe hoe the garden. And I guess we’d help with the laundry and the
ironing, I can’t remember having to be, working hard or anything. I can’t remember my dad
saying you had to get out there and work. Come to think of it, we had kind of a no man’s life,
being here and there and that sort of thing.
Polanchyck: Yeah.
Humphrey: I guess it didn’t hurt anything. I went through some [inaudible] but my sister and
my brother went to the same high school, like my sister got to spend her whole high school there,
20
well see she’s got good friends and every Memorial Weekend, that’s the thing they do in the
Midwest, or at least in Nebraska, they have class reunions on Memorial Weekend because people
are coming home to decorate graves [from the war] and things like that. So the high schools have
banquets or honor classes like if it’s 50 years or 60 years, they’ll usually have a get together the
day or night before too. So she usually goes back every so often to see some of her classmates
and she keeps in touch with them too. It’s about a three hour drive for her to go back to them,
where she went to high school and graduated high school.
Polanchyck: I know you also had told me that your father was in veterinary practice and your
brother was as well.
Humphrey: Yes, mhm
Polanchyck: And I know you had said when you met your husband he was in the vet interest
too?
Humphrey: He wasn’t in the vet yet; he had gone to the University of Omaha for three years or
something before we were married. Then he applied to go to Kansas State. But we were there six
years cause he took two years of school there then you have to apply like to get into med school
and get accepted. Then spent the four years in veterinary school, right!
Marcus Humphrey: Yep, right!
Polanchyck: I thought that was interesting how the veterinary practice was so related with your
family among the men.
Humphrey: Yeah [laughs].
Polanchyck: I think that’s really interesting.
Humphrey: Well my mother always said she ought to get some kind of an award because she
had a husband, a son, a son in-law, a brother and a nephew. And her brother was in class with my
21
dad and they had a very small class, only 31, they had a very small class when they went through
veterinary school too. They known each other because my mother and dad met, my dad had an
uncle who had a farm in Nebraska, now he had immigrated here the same as his dad, from
England. I don’t know who, uncle Charles had stayed, and his one brother had gone to Australia
and that’s where my grandfather was headed, and his brother Charles had said to come to the
United States to visit me then go on across to Australia from the West coast, so my dad’s uncle
had a farm in Nebraska and he came up here to work on the farm. My mother was teaching
country school then and she was staying with her sister and her husband and some way they met
through this farming, they had farms next to each other, and that’s how my dad and mother met,
through her sister and my dad’s uncle being out on the farm. And that’s when they got married in
1924. They had known each other through school. I think there was only thirty something in the
class for sure. I would have to have my sister, she kind of got into genealogy, to figure how
many there were really. It is kind of different that this one and this one were in vet.
Polanchyck: Yeah, how did you and your husband meet?
Humphrey: We went out on a blind date in Omaha.
Polanchyck: Blind date! Wow. Did a friend set you up?
Humphrey: Well, my roommate, not the roommate I went through nurse training with but the
roommate after nurses training and we lived in a room with another classmate of mine. And she
worked in the psychiatric unit and I went in the obstetrical unit at the hospital and we were
rooming together. So when she was working the psychiatric unit, his roommate [her husband]
when he was going to the university of Omaha, he did orderly work, it was an outside job for
him. He worked on evenings or weekends, so they are the ones that introduced us because my
roommate knew his roommate and they decided we should meet.
22
Polanchyck: To set you up!
Humphrey: Yeah! To set us up.
Marcus Humphrey: We had a friend who had a sailboat.
Humphrey: Didn’t you have some ownership? Or help build it?
Marcus Humphrey: No we didn’t have any ownership in it, we just used it. On the lake near
Omaha.
Humphrey: Yeah, Carter Lake.
Marcus Humphrey: And we’d sail it at night.
Polanchyck: So your first date was on a boat?
Humphrey: Yeah we went sailing on this boat out at Carter Lake; it’s near the airport in Omaha
right next to the Missouri River because the airport is right there next to the river in Omaha. And
that’s the way we met.
Polanchyck: And you got married in what year?
Humphrey: 49’. Last year was 60 years, 61 [years] now. We got married on my parent’s 25th
anniversary on August 16th. That was my mother’s suggestion and we went along with it. Then
after that he [her husband] went off to college. Had a honeymoon then set off to Kansas State.
That was our first home, it worked out. My mother always thought it would be nice that when
they had their 50th we’d have our 25th, but my father didn’t live for them to have a 50th
[anniversary]. He died of a massive heart attack in ‘72 I guess it was. My mother took my
brother and his wife and their son and my sister and us and then two close friends to dinner at
some nice restaurant it was summer time when we went out there to visit her and so she took us
all out to dinner on our anniversary. That was our celebration for our 25th; I said it would have
been their 50th. Now her parents did have a 50th anniversary which was kind of unusual. It was
23
during the time I was in nurses training that they had their 50th anniversary, her parents. And I
remember, and I tell people this story, is that I was in nurses training in Omaha and they lived in
north east Nebraska not too far from Wisner and they had their wedding anniversary in March,
they celebrated it on the actual date, they had a dinner at the church for the people and family
and all ten of the children came home. Maybe their spouses didn’t come, they were working or
something, but all were there and then grandchildren, like myself, that could come and I
remember that I went to my nursing supervisor and I said could I have this particular day off, to
go because I had to go on a bus to my parents. They had a dinner at the church for just the family
and then they had an open house at their house where they had punch and cookies and put out the
word in their town for people to drop in, and come give their congratulations, and this nurse
supervisor I had, I said to her what I wanted to do. I wanted to go to my grandparents 50th
anniversary party and she said, “by all means, it isn’t often you get to celebrate a 50th wedding
anniversary” and I have thought of that so many times cause now, 50th anniversaries are a dime a
dozen, you read it in the paper all the time now, 50 and 60 year, we just had our 60th, every so
often I see in the paper, maybe in the obituary someone just celebrated their 63rd or 64th. So that
had just stuck in my mind because you didn’t hear about people having a 50th wedding
anniversary it just didn’t happen. And this would have been 44’ or 45’ when they had theirs. So
that’s the way it goes. So what else can I tell you?
Polanchyck: I do want to ask, when the war ended, did you feel relief or notice any significant
changes where you were living? Because I know when major events happen, I know exactly
where I was when 9/11 happened, so I just want to get that, do you remember the exact moment
when you heard the war ended? Or the relief you felt?
24
Humphrey: I guess I was just out of high school and stuff like that. I had graduated in 44’ and it
was all kind of a jubilant time and people were relieved it was over and the troops were coming
home, people were coming home. You knew you were going to get back to a normal family life.
My dad he got out of the service and set up this veterinary practice in Wisner and his last
assignment was at an army camp and Camp Ellis in Galesburg, Illinois I remember that, that was
his last assignment.
Polanchyck: Were you ever worried that he was going to get sent overseas?
Humphrey: It never occurred to me, about him going overseas, that he would have to do that. I
had some cousins that maybe were in the service and I can’t tell you were they were or if they
were ever endangered, or worried about them getting shot at or something. See I didn’t know
him when he was going through his time, then I really would have been worried if I had known
him [her husband]. When he was flying, being a pilot, being shot at over Germany.
Marcus Humphrey: I didn’t worry about things then.
Humphrey: No, she was asking me if I worried and I said if I had known you then I probably
would have been worried.
Marcus Humphrey: Oh, right!
Humphrey: And she just wants to know if I was worried and I can’t think…
Polanchyck: Was it just the way of life?
Humphrey: It was the way of life; I don’t think that I was really worried that we were going to
get bombed or get beat or something like that. You just went along with it and you didn’t have
all the stuff you can see now, you didn’t have the T.V., you could watch the news at night and
see this many people, like we are watching Iraq and Afghanistan. Every night there is something
that’s happened over there. We had radios, but the T.V. wasn’t a thing at home where you could
25
sit at home and watch it and worry that you could get beat. The German or Japanese rule,
[laughs]!
Polanchyck: Do you think growing up during such a significant point in history has changed
your outlook on life? And the way you lived the rest of your life after the war ended, and raising
a family, do you think those years…
Humphrey: Made a difference in the way we live?
Polanchyck: Yeah.
Humphrey: No, not really. You just took it a day at a time really, you’re glad that you felt like
you were coming back to a normal life as a family. With my dad being out of the service and
going to school, nurses training.
Polanchyck: More security maybe?
Humphrey: Yeah, you know you didn’t think about, at least I don’t remember thinking about
things like that. Just kind of went with the flow and things seemed to fall into place, you did
what you had to. I went off to nurses training and I didn’t really get to see my sister growing up,
I wasn’t home to see her through. But we’d go home and she’d always be excited to see me. I
can’t think it made a lot of difference, or made me have a bad outlook on life. You just take it a
day at a time. Just figure this is the situation we’re in, this is the way we lived, we had the war
and so many dads were in the service or brothers.
Polanchyck: Would you say you value having everyone at home now, or even in the past 20, 30,
40 years, that you value it more, than most people? Like for myself, I have grown up always in a
secure country, no major wars going on, and nobody in the family, would you value it more than
most people?
Humphrey: Oh you know, I probably do, the fact that we moved from here to there. I have
26
never said I was angry or regretted it. I never got to spend time in one school like my brother did
and my sister. Well my brother had started one school and finished in a different school, he was
in two different schools, where I was in how many different schools. I don’t resent it, but I just
have to say I was here, I was here, I was here, I was here!
Polanchyck: When you were living in Washington D.C. what was life like then?
Humphrey: Life was good, we belonged to a church and got involved with the church and made
friends through church , made friends through our neighbors and through his work, we knew
people through his work, had social life. Tried to do things with our daughter, follow things
through her school and participate with her school things, every year we tried to go see my
parents and make trips to the Midwest.
Polanchyck: And then you moved to Gettysburg in?
Humphrey: ‘88.
Polanchyck: And what have you been doing since then?
Humphrey: I joined a church here belonged to the newcomers club which I think is about to
fold, I guess I’m the type of person that gets involved in things; I like to be around people.
Marcus Humphrey: She just walked out!
Humphrey: Well, I told her I was going to the restroom!
Polanchyck: That’s okay [laughs].
(Stopped tape, while Mrs. Humphrey was in the restroom, no further conversation took place
until I started the tape again.)
Humphrey: So I got involved with the church, and he was a part of the library when the post
office was turned into a library downtown.
Marcus Humphrey: Oh boy I can tell you all about that! I was the clerk of the works down
27
there!
Humphrey: Yeah but they were remodeling it, it had been the post office and playing cards. We
lived down at Lake Heritage, it’s a gated community and they had a fishing club, but you didn’t
have to be a fisherman to belong to it and they had potluck dinners once a month down at the
community center and we made friends through different things we belonged to. So it’s been
good for us, we are only an hour drive from our daughter and we can see them. Or they can come
up here and visit us. Usually now that the grandkids are getting bigger every summer or holiday
we have them for a few days and do things with them. They just like to be here and be with us.
Grandson take walks with him [her husband] or come to movies, they like the movies. You
usually make friends pretty easily when you get involved. It’s a quieter type of life and we try to
do different things. I got started through somebody at Wilson College over in Chambersburg, the
Institute of Retired Persons where in the fall and in the spring, for 8 weeks they have lectures,
three mornings a week, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. They send out a program and you
can pick, and they have had people from Gettysburg College or Dickinson, local people who
have had interesting careers. I really enjoy that. I have got involved going to that. You pay $20 a
thing, and they have four trips, day trips to Washington, they went down to see the terracotta
warriors this week. But I had gone to see them through HACC, and I like to see them over there
so I go to those twice a year, spring and fall. Same type of thing, you go over there and they give
you a continental breakfast and they give you two lectures and then a lunch then one after lunch
and you get to pick subjects that you want to hear, and you see the program and pick something
you like to hear and if it’s not something you’re not interested in you don’t go. Or if you have a
conflict.
Polanchyck: What kind of lectures are you most interested in?
28
Humphrey: Well, like yesterday we went over to see this man, it was the 250th anniversary of
Benjamin Franklins birthday and there is two or three men in the area that do an impersonation
of Ben Franklin and this man happens to live in East Berlin and he came dressed as Ben Franklin
and lectured on Ben Franklin’s life.
Polanchyck: Oh, that is interesting.
Humphrey: Down at HACC there is this Dr. Coons, who works at the main campus in
Harrisburg and whatever he talks about you always want to go hear because he is so animated
about it when he lectures - but he’s talked about Mona Lisa, he’s talked about Rogers and
Hammerstein’s the musical anything when you get the list in the mail and you look at the list of
the lectures that they are going to have, you see his name there I will sign up to listen to
whatever he’s going to talk about. He talked about the first ladies one time. He’s always got a big
repertoire of things to talk about; you want to go hear him talk, because you will enjoy it. He
makes it really enjoyable. Got stories to tell you about things. So we find something to do all the
time. Some people just hibernate and don’t get involved. Go to the majestic sometimes and
Wilson College about 18 years. I read in the paper one time they had these films and dinners so
now we belong and give a little extra money and are called patrons. We’re going to one next
week which will be the last one. They have two in the fall and two in the spring. They are like a
travel log, the lady that is head of conferences over there, to plan a meal you pay for the meal
and the film but the meal corn sides with the country its foods of that country. Whether it be
Korea, France or whatever. So they are in the evenings. Dinner at 6 and film at 7, we get home
by 10 or something. So I think we get involved with a lot of things, a varied life, we’re just not
sitting here twiddling out thumbs thinking what can I do now? Ha-ha.
Polanchyck: Well, I appreciate you sitting down and doing this with me.
29
Humphrey: Have I covered everything!?
Polanchyck: Yes, you have, we have covered everything!
Humphrey: Well, now what will you do with this if I might ask?
Polanchyck: Well, I am actually going to transcribe the entire interview and it’s going to be
everything word for word, and if you want a copy of that I can bring one for you.
Humphrey: Oh yeah! That’d be nice!
Polanchyck: So I am doing that then writing a reflection essay.
Humphrey: Well I hope I have helped you!
Alex: You definitely have. Thank you.
(Interview ends at 4:10 p.m.)

Oral History Collection
To read the transcript and listen to the audio of this interview at the same time, first download
the pdf of the transcript by clicking on the link at the top of this screen. The
transcript will open in a separate window. Next, select the option to the right of the
screen.
Special Collections
Musselman Library
Interview with
Marylin Humphrey
Interviewer: Alex Polanchyck
Interview Date: April 29, 2010
1
MARYLIN HUMPHREY, Oral History
I am sitting in the living room with Marylin and Marcus Humphrey who live in the
Gettysburg Lutheran Retirement Village on 1075 Old Harrisburg Road Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania, Cottage #168. Interview starts at 2:30 p.m.
Alex Polanchyck: So I want to start when you were little and I just want to ask what your life
was like growing up on a farm in Kansas.
Marylin Humphrey: Well, I didn’t really live on a farm that long. I said I was born at my
grandparent’s home and we lived there while my dad was still going to college. Two years of it
that he was in college at Kansas State, my mother went to school there and they had me, and they
took me along [to school] and they had a daycare like it is today, the Home Ec department at
Kansas State had child care, and that’s where they could put in the daytime and whoever got out
of class first could pick me up, and then when my dad did graduate college we moved to
Woodward, Oklahoma and that’s where I started school, so I was probably five or so when we
moved there. Living on the farm, my grandmother and grandfather had a lot to do with taking
care of me, while my mother was teaching school, I’d say the last two years of my dad’s college,
in country school and we just lived in my grandparents’ home. I just remember some things
about it; my grandmother used take me places with her. It was very rural, we lived about two
miles from this little town called Liberty, and it was just a wide spot in the road, it was ten miles
away to Independence and Coffeyville, which are probably the size of Gettysburg. My
grandmother belonged to the church Ladies Aid we called it, she had a friend down the road, a
mile or two, this was in the farm, and she had a granddaughter about my age, in the summer
time, this granddaughter would visit my grandmother’s friend and we’d play together. One time,
this is a funny thing, my grandmother, her friend would come and bring her granddaughter over
2
and we’d go outside and play and they’d visit and have coffee or tea, and after her friend went
home, my grandmother went out to gather the eggs, and I said, “well you don’t need to get any
eggs, there aren’t any eggs in there now,” and she said, “what? What do you mean?” and I said,
“well, we’d made mud pies and we went in and put these eggs in the mud pies because we said
our husbands were sick and we needed to put egg in their mud pie.” Now isn’t that awful
[laughs]. My grandmother was good to me; I don’t think she’d probably scold at me.
Polanchyck: So you were close with your grandmother?
Humphrey: Yeah, pretty good and my grandfather too. He’d take me walking through the
pasture land. They raised cattle. That’s basically it, then when we moved to Oklahoma that’s
where I started school and I do remember some things about it, living in Woodward. I’d say the
population would be like close to what this is [Gettysburg]. That’s where my brother was born
and we lived in Woodward. I remember they had two theaters in town and it was all of ten cents
to go to the movies.
Polanchyck: $.10! I wish it was $.10 still!
Humphrey: Right! One time, because this was bad times, the Depression, people didn’t have
any money or anything. One time I remember if you brought an empty fruit jar to the movie
theater you could get into the movie theater and that was the pay to go to the movie. They
collected fruit jars because they were trying to can fruit and meat and stuff for people that didn’t
have any money. Nobody had any money. Farmers didn’t have good crops, the crops were bad,
and it was dry, no rain, dustbowl days and stuff like that, but that sort of sticks in my mind, that
we did that.
Polanchyck: Were your grandparents directly affected by the Depression, working on a farm?
3
Humphrey: I don’t know, they might have been, but I certainly didn’t know that they had any
particular problem, because they had cattle and they butchered the cattle and they had pigs and
they butchered them and everything, and my grandmother always had a garden I remember
going to that and she’d be hoeing in the summer time and do that, and I’m sure she did a lot of
canning. They had a cellar, it wasn’t finished off, dirt walling, but you went down from the
outside to it and that’s where they put their canned goods, their green beans, tomatoes. My
grandfather bought the farm, I don’t know how long it took him to pay for it, in 1899, in 1999
my cousin who still lives on the farm and her husband, it had been in the family a hundred years
so she put together a reunion and it was a lot of fun. A lot of cousins, we only had one living, my
dad had two sisters and three brothers, there were six of them and the youngest sister was still
alive, she was only one of the siblings, she lived outside of Tacoma, Washington and her two
granddaughters brought her to this reunion. But I say, thinking about if they had a hard time,
evidently they survived. My grandmother, she had one brother who had never married and he
died fairly young, when I say young, I mean in his 40s or something, and I don’t know how well
off her parents were, she probably inherited some money from them, from her parents and what
her brother might have had, I don’t know, but, they seemed to survive.
Polanchyck: So you don’t recall food rationings, specifically?
Humphrey: I don’t think, they [grandparents] maintained a home, and seemed to be able to buy
groceries but a lot of it was of their own doing, you know like I said, canning and so forth like
that too but, certain things you’d have to go buy. I guess, thinking back on this thing, they used
to make soap on themselves, you know laundry soap and they did a lot things like that. I think,
people on a farm did more for themselves than people in town, don’t you think? [Mrs. Humphrey
talking to her husband, sitting in the room with us]
4
Marcus Humphrey: Right!
Humphrey: More self sufficient I think too, they didn’t have the store to go to and lots of times
the stores didn’t have the things you have now, you have a hundred choices of soap when you go
in there of laundry soap, you know you go in there and you think now which kind is the best?
[laughs] Whether you want to get this kind or that kind. My mother always talked about it, it
didn’t upset her, I’m sure she wasn’t really bitter about the thing but she said, that between she
and my father that’s the way they got through college. He didn’t have help from his parents, they
earned it all themselves and that’s why she taught school, he taught school one time too, he had
went to what was probably like a junior college in Pittsburgh, Kansas then I say mother, she
went two years to Kansas State and then they needed more money to keep my dad in college so
that’s why she went back and taught country school and lived with her in-laws till he got out of
college. I can’t think that we’re really destitute, but I do know my mother learned to sew and I
never had a store bought dress until I got out of high school.
Polanchyck: Wow.
Humphrey: My dad bought her a sewing machine for twenty-five dollars and she was self-taught
and she got to be a really good seamstress. So you know they made do with what they
had. I guess, you know. I don’t think we were poor but we just didn’t have a lot of extras
particularly but that’s the way it is, you don’t think back on if you thought you were starving to
death or if you didn’t have anything to go buy something. We always had things given to us for
Christmas and birthdays and so forth. When you’re a kid it doesn’t seem to bother you that you
don’t have all the amenities that people do. I have a feeling there were people that had money of
course, but then, you know everyone was kind of floating along in the same boat. Are you
asleep?
5
Marcus Humphrey: No! Why!?
Humphrey: Don’t go to sleep, and wake up in a hurry. You think that you suffered before the
war?
Marcus Humphrey: Oh yeah! Same way.
Humphrey: Right. So I don’t mean to take all your time talking about one thing.
Polanchyck: No, but I want to get back to your schooling though, I know you said you moved to
Woodbridge…
Humphrey: Woodward. Woodward, Oklahoma
Polanchyck: Woodward, Oklahoma and was that in middle school?
Humphrey: No, that was where I started school.
Polanchyck: Oh, that’s where you started school
Humphrey: Yeah, I went to first grade there and I think it was probably when I was in fourth
grade we moved to Nebraska.
Polanchyck: Did you notice a difference in moving from Oklahoma to Nebraska, like economic
differences or community differences?
Humphrey: No, I guess not. We lived in Blair, Nebraska which is on the Missouri River, just
twenty-five miles, north of Omaha and I don’t know, we seemed to survive. My mother belonged
to a Home-Ec Club I remember, I want to say like a county agent, but they had women that come
out and teach you things, cooking classes and things like that she took that and I don’t know they
had a swimming pool there and I remember my dad challenged me to learn to swim, which I did,
but I took swimming then in high school, because him helping me do it wasn’t like regular
swimming classes. But I don’t think we lived any differently than we lived in Oklahoma. Things
might have you know gotten better. Of course my dad had a good government job, for the
6
Department of Agriculture. He always had income, too; it wasn’t like when he was in practice
when he was depending on people to call him to do veterinary work for them.
Polanchyck: So he did the veterinary work before the Department of Agriculture?
Humphrey: Yeah, right!
Polanchyck: How did he get into the Department of Agriculture?
Humphrey: Well, I said when we lived in Woodward. That’s where he went when he graduated
from college, set up a veterinary practice. He had gotten his degree in veterinary medicine, he
passed the boards, whatever they had to do then, but as I said, this was the dustbowl years, it was
no crops and everything, and people didn’t have money, they couldn’t pay him for his veterinary
work. I remember there were two dairies in town, one on each side of town, and he did all their
veterinary work and we got all the eggs and the milk and the cream we wanted and that was his
pay basically, the money he made. I remember mother talking about somebody paid him with
canned goat meat and probably we ate it, I don’t know [laughs]. So he can say that things were
bad, he wasn’t making any income, then he applied and got a job with the Department of
Agriculture then he TB tested cattle all over the state of Oklahoma for a couple of years I guess it
was. Then he finished that and that’s when we moved to Nebraska because then he went, he was
still with the Department of Agriculture but they worked with poultry up there and we lived there
[Nebraska]. He sort of covered a county there and then he finished that county so we moved, not
exactly the next county but it was not too far from there, to work that county. I remember we
wanted to move to the county seat, which was West Point, Nebraska but they couldn’t find any
place to live so we chose Wisner and that’s where we lived then. Then we moved from Blair to
Wisner and went to school there and that’s where we were living when the war started in 1941.
Polanchyck: Ok and then when did you move to Rapid City?
7
Humphrey: When I was a junior in high school.
Polanchyck: What caused the transfer?
Humphrey: Well, because my dad was always interested in public health work and he applied to
get into public health work and he was accepted and they sent him back here to Bethesda,
Maryland for six weeks training and it was like a regional office was Kansas City and they had
places that they sent him and I don’t know how many states it had covered, and they sent him to
Rapid City, South Dakota. The war had started, to the public health office there and I can
remember there was a man that tested for water, they had nurses and doctors and he was like
food inspection, like going into restaurants and checking whether they were preparing foods and
doing the right thing. Then I say, in fact I don’t know whether you say drafted in to the army but
he had been in ROTC in college and he kept it up and he stayed with that so consequently they
called him up, he didn’t ever go out of the country but they sent him to a lot of different bases,
some of them were air bases, some of them were regular army bases, over the country. Well, we
didn’t try to follow him around because he might be someplace for six weeks then he might be
someplace for six months or something.
Polanchyck: What did your mom do while he was travelling?
Humphrey: They left there [Rapid City, SD] I stayed there with a family to finish my junior
year of high school. They arranged for me to finish high school and my dad’s mother, my
grandmother, lived where I was born and was dying of cancer. So my dad decided, and his
youngest brother that their wives should help take care of her and so he bought a house in this
little town called Liberty and moved my mother and my brother down there first, then I stayed
and finished my junior year in Rapid City and then I remember that I took the train from there to
Wisner, Nebraska where we lived and my uncle who lived on the home farm, he drove up there
8
and got me and took me down there so that summer, I was there in Liberty, and then I went my
senior year to Coffeyville High school. It was ten miles away because they did have, of course
they didn’t even have an elementary school anymore, but they did have a high school there but it
was very small. I think the class would have been smaller than your class (talking to Mr.
Humphrey) because he went to small town in Nebraska, and what did you have? 31 or 32 or
something in your high school class?
Marcus Humphrey: 30?! I don’t think we had that many!
Humphrey: I thought one time there was a list of them or something, but anyway! It was a small
[school], Liberty had a school but my mother and dad, they thought I could get as good an
education as a bigger school. Coffeyville would be like going to Gettysburg High School. So of
course, we lived ten miles away and I remember they arranged, they had two big oil refineries in
Coffeyville and there was a man that lived on a farm outside of Liberty, but he worked at one of
those and we paid him ten dollars a week and he would come in and pick me up and take me to
school. And I can’t remember, but he must have let me off at the high school or else I walked
from downtown to the high school, so I knew people but I never got involved to the social strata
of high school.
Polanchyck: Was it hard to make friends moving around so much?
Humphrey: Oh yeah! I mean being a senior in high school I didn’t go to a senior prom, I don’t
even remember going to any of the football or basketball games. Because I mean at 4 o’clock I
would meet up with him and he’d bring me home and that was it. I’m on their mailing list [the
high school] there’s somebody that’s in that class, and he’s got my email address, I gave it to
them a long time ago, that was a mistake! But he’s always sending me stories and he’s very rabid
Republican he’s always you know, knocking Obama or something [laughs] and he had a
9
classmate who just passed away a couple of weeks ago in Missouri, he was on our email list, and
we get these emails, and I said to him [her husband] that you had a Republican friend and I had a
Republican friend and not that you know it matters, but I just you know delete them, delete them.
I never respond to them. I think this fellow has kept up with all the class and it was pretty good
and I can’t tell you exactly how many were in the class but there must have been a couple of
hundred of us and he’s always telling you about somebody passing away. It’s just kind of
interesting to -
Polanchyck: To keep up with it?
Humphrey: Yeah, right! It’s just fun to hear this kind of stuff. Once in a while, I might respond
and say thanks for something he might send. My husband wrote a story about his service and he
did ask for your book, I think we sent him one, you know about his time in the service [her
husband] but he was much about how it was fun, he didn’t talk about all the horrible things that
happened when we were fighting the war.
Polanchyck: When you were in high school what were your thoughts on the war? Were you
scared at any point?
Humphrey: Well no, not really I guess, I just remember when I graduated from Coffeyville,
Kansas high school, I can’t remember whether it was a weekend or during the week and it was
day time and it was outdoors like at the stadium it wasn’t a real big stadium and I remember my
mother and my aunt and my dad going to the graduation and as soon as it was over a lot of the
high school kids went right into service, cause you know the war was still going on and a lot of
them got their diplomas and jumped up and whoopee and away they go. They were going to be
sent some place, you know it might by the army, the navy, the air force and away they go. So
that was graduation.
10
Polanchyck: So it wasn’t unusual for you to experience that? It was just a way of life at that
point?
Humphrey: It was just a part of life, when I was younger, my grandmother died in February I
think it was, anyway it was spring time, and then the war was about to wind down, so my dad
decided that he wanted to go back to practice again, that he liked Wisner and there was a
veterinarian there that wanted to sell his practice, so my dad bought it. So, after I got out high
school we moved back to Wisner. In that year my mother had my sister, and she was born in ’43.
In November of ‘43, so we moved back to Wisner to live and then when my dad got out of the
service and I remember I didn’t know what I wanted to do, I thought I wanted to go into nursing
and they had what they call Cadet Nursing Corps, that’s when the government paid for you to go
through nursing school and so I applied for that but I couldn’t get in. They had two classes a
year, September and February, and I was too late for the September class in ’44 so in order to do
something, I went to one semester of college at Wayne State Teachers College which was about
20 miles away and I went up there and lived that semester, but then I got accepted for the
February class and that’s when I started. I went to Omaha to the University of Nebraska School
of Nursing. And then the Cadet Corps, the war was over so they took it away but they still if you
were in the program got to continue, they didn’t make you pay.
Polanchyck: The government paid for it.
Humphrey: Yeah, right. I mean my parents could have paid for mine and everything but they
said as long as the government was paying for it, you might as well go do that. I remember,
‘cause it was a mid-year class, in February, we only had was it 21 or something in the class, and
the one gal, her father was the doctor in Omaha and they were going to pay for hers, they didn’t
want her to take, cause I guess they thought she was going to behooving to the government, but
11
they didn’t [the government] you know take you into the service and become an army nurse, but
they paid for her, but she never finished training, in fact we had three, that’s why I said there was
21 of us, there was three in a room, and she and my other roommate, the three of us roomed
together, but she had a boyfriend that was in the service and he came home and that was it. She
got married, and somewhere I found a little piece of her wedding announcement and we never
basically heard from her again, I don’t know, maybe talked to her on the phone a few times, but
my roommate that she and I finished training together we still are in touch, and she lives in
Littleton, Colorado so we email and they’ve been here and we’ve been there and seen them so,
we’re still in touch with each other but this [other] gal, who knows where she is [laughs]!
Polanchyck: Did you want to be a nurse after high school?
Humphrey: Yeah, I was interested in it and my dad thought that was a good thing to do that. So
that’s what I did. So finished training and I met him [her husband] in Omaha and then we got
married then I helped him go through school and we went to Kansas State. I worked at the
student health at the college down there. It was kind of a funny thing, we had a trailer house,
which my father had bought, and it was a brand new trailer house.
Polanchyck: When did he buy the trailer house?
Humphrey: When we had started college and got married, because the college had a trailer park
and you could park your trailers out and we paid fifteen dollars a month or something, very
reasonable, for electricity and water, for something like that.
Marcus Humphrey: It had three rooms and bath.
Humphrey: Yeah, that’s what he called it, we didn’t have a bathroom in it but they had a-
Marcus Humphrey: A central house!
Humphrey: Central house, where if you didn’t have bathrooms-
12
Marcus Humphrey: You had to go down there to go.
Humphrey: Yeah, the men on one side, the women on the other then they had a laundry room on
one end of it, but this trailer park where there were other students and the couple right next door
to us, she was a nurse and worked at the student health and they had been there already a couple
of years, he was in agriculture and he became a vocational agriculture teacher and they were
native Kansans they grew up together and went through high school together. Anyway, she was a
nurse at student health so I applied for work there and of course they had a list, and they worked
five days a week Monday through Friday and Saturday mornings, just till noon. And the student
health had a twenty bed hospital, that sometimes kids would have to be put in the hospital if they
needed, otherwise they came in through the student health with their colds and injuries or
something. I put my name in to work there and one Saturday morning this one nurse got sick and
couldn’t come so they called and asked me if I could come work that half day, which I did, and
then she couldn’t come back Monday so they had me come Monday, then this went on for two or
three days, I said it was the longest half day that ever went, but they hired me then full time so I
worked the whole six years we were there, at the student health. It was kind of nice because this
couple, course he graduated before he got out of school [her husband] but we did things as
couples do together. Maybe on Sunday take a ride in the country and go eat someplace or we’d
play cards on Saturday night or something, that’s the way it worked out.
Polanchyck: OK, so you worked six years in the student health, what did you move onto after
those six years?
Humphrey: I didn’t really do any nursing because he graduated and my dad still had this
veterinary practice and he asked him [her husband] to come work with him. So he did, so we
moved back to Wisner and that’s where our daughter was born, in 57’. He graduated in 55’ so
13
when she was born two years after we were there, and we lived there until - let’s see, you went to
work for the government, she started kindergarten I guess in Tecumseh, didn’t she?
Marcus Humphrey: I think so.
Humphrey: Yeah, because when he started working for the government and my dad sold the
practice. Well no, we stayed one year and the fellow that bought it from my dad, Mike stayed
and worked for him for one year then you went into to work for the government and they sent
him to South East Nebraska and we lived in Tecumseh which is about the size of Wisner and
they had a Campbell Soup processing plant there, where they brought in chickens, process them
and so it started the inspector there and he went on the road for a while and travelled to Missouri,
Nebraska, Kansas didn’t you? He got sent to MIT for graduate school for poultry inspection and
so we moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. We lived as I said in glorified camping because we
had just got an apartment near the public transit, the MTA they call it or something? And if the
weather was good he would ride his bicycle down to Cambridge to MIT, otherwise you could go
over and get on the bus.
Polanchyck: Was that a transition for you?
Humphrey: Well, we just had this apartment and there was this elementary school just down the
street and that’s where our daughter started kindergarten and she went there for the year and it
was just half day. I’d walk her down the street to the school and then I’d be down there when she
got out. We got this apartment and it was just a one bedroom so we got a bed and we slept on a
hide-a-bed in the living room, I packed up dishes and sent them back there and we got a T.V. and
this hide-a-bed and a couple of chairs, a table and chairs that we used to have a galley kitchen
about like we do out there (points to their kitchen from the living room) and that’s what we did.
Then when he finished there we went back, first they said they were sending him to Philadelphia
14
to live, but then we went back and they said they wanted him in the Des Moines regional office
which is where he was, that’s where our daughter went through the first grade there.
Polanchyck: In Des Moines?
Humphrey: No in Tecumseh, because that’s where we just left our house locked it up and left.
We didn’t take anything. But the regional office was Des Moines and that’s where he had to
report to and started travelling those states out there and our daughter was in the first grade then
in the fall when she went into second grade that’s when we got sent to Washington D.C. so that’s
when she started, in November when we moved back to Washington. You came first [her
husband] , he drove out here and started looking for a house to live in Fairfax County, Virginia
then when he found something, nowadays I guess the government workers will let the wives go
along and help find a place to live, but then, he did the picking which was okay, he did okay! He
flew back to Nebraska to drive us back here [Humphrey and her daughter], we had two cars and
he drove a car back here. I don’t know where he’d been staying, in a room in Arlington, Virginia
and that was it and we lived there until 1988 then we came up here [Gettysburg]. He really
retired in ’81, then we moved just to get out of the Washington area, just getting tired of the, it
had gotten bad and it’s gotten worse right now [laughs]! All the traffic. Just not used to that.
Driving in all the traffic and I think it is more expensive living too, everything is up there.
Polanchyck: When your daughter was going through elementary school were you working?
Humphrey: No, I never worked again. A couple of times I did some private duty. I never
worked in Virginia because I never got my license [nursing license]. I kept up my Kansas and
my Nebraska license then they got to the place where they expected you to go back and do your
refresher courses and stuff. Well, you weren’t always in a situation where you could do that. I
figured I was better off at home when she was born [their daughter] and going to school when
15
she started the second grade there, to be a stay at home mom, since she was our only child. Be
available for her and so forth. She had to be bused to school, even when they changed schools. In
second grade, she was in one elementary then they built another one and she had to finish her
elementary there, even bused them there, they didn’t walk over. As I said when we lived in
Wisner, for family and friends, I did a little private duty but, nothing to talk about. When I
finished working at the campus at Kansas State, which was basically the end of my nursing. And
I say when you had to start, in order to renew your license to take refresher courses, it wasn’t
always convenient. You would have to pay something and you had to find somebody to get a
credit and all that. Just let it go [laughs].
Polanchyck: So when you moved from Kansas to Cambridge, Massachusetts what was that like?
Was that hard for you to transition?
Humphrey: We were living in Nebraska when we moved to Cambridge.
Polanchyck: Was that different for you?
Humphrey: No, no because basically it was like a nine months thing for him to do and I say she
was in kindergarten and we made friends with an army captain or colonel but they didn’t live
around us, but we kind of made friends with them because they were taking the same classes and
my daughter made a couple of friends at school, one gal we visited back and forth. Maybe they’d
come over and visit us and the kids would play or we’d go to their house and play. We spent our
time, when he didn’t have to study we would see New England, because we thought we’d never
be back there again. So on a weekend or holiday time we’d go into Maine, New Hampshire,
Vermont down to Connecticut and Rhode Island and western Massachusetts. We saw a lot of
things for that and enjoyed it and took advantage of the fact we lived there and could see these
things you read about and we did have company at times. My sister came once, my dad came
16
once and these friends that are still good friends of ours, they came and they’d come and we’d
drive down to Cape Cod or just take them downtown Boston to the Freedom Trail they call it.
We’d ride the MTA and go down there [downtown Boston].
Polanchyck: Did you like living up there during the time that you were?
Humphrey: Oh yeah, I mean it was just kind of like a vacation and we’d read up on things to
see. We’d go down to see old sterburts village or mystic Connecticut, down to Rhode Island,
Cape Cod. Tried to see the things they are known for, so it all worked out for us. I think our
daughter, that’s what got her interest in history; her forte is history so maybe it rubbed off on her,
doing those things! [Laughs] I have talked too much, just tell me to shut up!
Polanchyck: Oh no! I do want to ask you though; you have a younger brother and a younger
sister, growing up were you close with them and are you still close with them? Are you a tight-knit
family?
Humphrey: Oh yes, we’re close. My brother lives in Billings, Montana and we do see each
other and talk on the telephone and then my sister I talk to a lot of times. We talk at least once a
week and she is the one that lives in De Moines and is seventeen years younger and everything.
She has one daughter who lives in the Kansas City area, in Olathe, Kansas. My grandchildren
have gotten very attached to her and her husband [her sister]. She has two grandchildren, who are
four and six, but my granddaughter is getting ready to fly to Kansas City tomorrow and spend a
week with her, this is her Spring Break. And this is the third time she’s done this, every other
year. My sister invited her to come out and her grandkids love her [granddaughter] because she
entertains them and the little boy who’s six is always like “when is it we are going to the airport
and meet Libby, I can hardly wait!” Last summer they came back here and visited my daughter
for a week then this year probably my daughter and the two grandkids will go out there [Kansas
17
City] and stay with my sister. We stay in touch with each other and we have never had any
falling outs with them at all. Like some people don’t have anything to do with their brothers and
sisters. Do you know any people like that?
Polanchyck: Yes [laughs].
Humphrey: Or am I stepping on your toes? [Laughs]
Polanchyck: No, no. I do know what you are referring to though [laughs]. So you are close
which is good.
Humphrey: Yeah, I mean I have a friend who has a younger brother and sister who live down in
the Washington area and she never has anything to do with them. Never sees them for any
holidays, I don’t even think she talks with them. I think that’s pretty bad. She has a grown
daughter and son who each have, and the daughter has two girls and the son has one boy and of
course they do things as a family because they aren’t that far apart. I mean that they can’t get
together, it’s not like California or something, I just think you might look to your brother or
sister one day for help on something. But that’s her prerogative, I can’t say that. I think that
probably growing up, my mothers’ family, you know I said she was one of ten, and my dad was
one of six and they always were close and kept in touch with each other. Usually summer time
they would have a family reunion, my mother’s would be in Nebraska because that’s where they
lived and my dad’s would be in Kansas where they lived. So I guess it’s kind of like what your
family does that you follow along. They always were in touch either calling each other or writing
each other, or having summer time having a family reunion as much as they could. And as many
as they could would come home cause they lived all the way from Washington state to Michigan
and Colorado, so they didn’t all end up in the same town, none of them really did except my
dad’s brother. His youngest brother, the baby in the family, that’s how the farm is still in the
18
family because he stayed on the farm and took care of his parents and never left home. He went
through high school but he never went to college or anything and now his daughter.
Polanchyck: So the farm is still in the family.
Humphrey: Yeah, right, right that’s what I said.
Polanchyck: Okay.
Humphrey: That’s why I said my grandfather bought it in 1899 and then in 1999 it was in the
family a hundred years that’s been 110 years.
Polanchyck: Who lives there now?
Humphrey: My uncle’s oldest daughter, she and her husband.
Polanchyck: Do you ever visit?
Humphrey: No, except when they had this reunion, but she does keep in touch with me. She
writes to me, or always sends a Christmas card and everything too. My uncle had four girls and
she’s the one that stayed there and the other girls live not too far, one in Topeka, Kansas then one
over in Missouri then another one near her in Kansas. I went back when they had this hundredth
anniversary of it being in the family, which was fun. So many of us came from California, Texas
and Georgia and Colorado and so they planned it well. We were at the farm and stayed in motels
around there except my aunt stayed on the farm. My cousin wanted her to stay out there because
it was her home where she grew up. They had a picnic and were out there and they took us on a
hay ride. Then the next day, at the elementary school which became a senior center, in this little
town we had a brunch in there. And people that knew different members of the family came in
there and dropped in to see us. I mean they did a good job of it; she and my cousin that lived on
the farm with the couple of cousins that lived close by planned it all out for us to be there. I flew
out to Kansas City and my sister met me there and she and her husband and my niece and I we
19
drove down there. It’s about a three hour drive down to where they live. So I always think back,
I’m glad I did it, you know?
Polanchyck: Mhm.
Humphrey: I think back on it, my brother had driven from Colorado, he and his wife had driven
down cause they were living in Colorado at that time. So I think everyone made a big effort to
come and be there. You got acquainted with cousins you knew, but their children. So it’s one of
those things that make you feel good.
Polanchyck: That’s nice.
Humphrey: Yeah.
Polanchyck: Let’s see what else -
Humphrey: I didn’t offer you something, would you like a coke?
Polanchyck: I’m okay, thank you, I really am.
Humphrey: Or a glass of water? What other questions do you have?
Polanchyck: Did you have any chores while you were growing up? Anything related to farm
work?
Humphrey: No I don’t think so. My dad usually, wherever we lived, we usually had a garden
and he’d want us to maybe hoe the garden. And I guess we’d help with the laundry and the
ironing, I can’t remember having to be, working hard or anything. I can’t remember my dad
saying you had to get out there and work. Come to think of it, we had kind of a no man’s life,
being here and there and that sort of thing.
Polanchyck: Yeah.
Humphrey: I guess it didn’t hurt anything. I went through some [inaudible] but my sister and
my brother went to the same high school, like my sister got to spend her whole high school there,
20
well see she’s got good friends and every Memorial Weekend, that’s the thing they do in the
Midwest, or at least in Nebraska, they have class reunions on Memorial Weekend because people
are coming home to decorate graves [from the war] and things like that. So the high schools have
banquets or honor classes like if it’s 50 years or 60 years, they’ll usually have a get together the
day or night before too. So she usually goes back every so often to see some of her classmates
and she keeps in touch with them too. It’s about a three hour drive for her to go back to them,
where she went to high school and graduated high school.
Polanchyck: I know you also had told me that your father was in veterinary practice and your
brother was as well.
Humphrey: Yes, mhm
Polanchyck: And I know you had said when you met your husband he was in the vet interest
too?
Humphrey: He wasn’t in the vet yet; he had gone to the University of Omaha for three years or
something before we were married. Then he applied to go to Kansas State. But we were there six
years cause he took two years of school there then you have to apply like to get into med school
and get accepted. Then spent the four years in veterinary school, right!
Marcus Humphrey: Yep, right!
Polanchyck: I thought that was interesting how the veterinary practice was so related with your
family among the men.
Humphrey: Yeah [laughs].
Polanchyck: I think that’s really interesting.
Humphrey: Well my mother always said she ought to get some kind of an award because she
had a husband, a son, a son in-law, a brother and a nephew. And her brother was in class with my
21
dad and they had a very small class, only 31, they had a very small class when they went through
veterinary school too. They known each other because my mother and dad met, my dad had an
uncle who had a farm in Nebraska, now he had immigrated here the same as his dad, from
England. I don’t know who, uncle Charles had stayed, and his one brother had gone to Australia
and that’s where my grandfather was headed, and his brother Charles had said to come to the
United States to visit me then go on across to Australia from the West coast, so my dad’s uncle
had a farm in Nebraska and he came up here to work on the farm. My mother was teaching
country school then and she was staying with her sister and her husband and some way they met
through this farming, they had farms next to each other, and that’s how my dad and mother met,
through her sister and my dad’s uncle being out on the farm. And that’s when they got married in
1924. They had known each other through school. I think there was only thirty something in the
class for sure. I would have to have my sister, she kind of got into genealogy, to figure how
many there were really. It is kind of different that this one and this one were in vet.
Polanchyck: Yeah, how did you and your husband meet?
Humphrey: We went out on a blind date in Omaha.
Polanchyck: Blind date! Wow. Did a friend set you up?
Humphrey: Well, my roommate, not the roommate I went through nurse training with but the
roommate after nurses training and we lived in a room with another classmate of mine. And she
worked in the psychiatric unit and I went in the obstetrical unit at the hospital and we were
rooming together. So when she was working the psychiatric unit, his roommate [her husband]
when he was going to the university of Omaha, he did orderly work, it was an outside job for
him. He worked on evenings or weekends, so they are the ones that introduced us because my
roommate knew his roommate and they decided we should meet.
22
Polanchyck: To set you up!
Humphrey: Yeah! To set us up.
Marcus Humphrey: We had a friend who had a sailboat.
Humphrey: Didn’t you have some ownership? Or help build it?
Marcus Humphrey: No we didn’t have any ownership in it, we just used it. On the lake near
Omaha.
Humphrey: Yeah, Carter Lake.
Marcus Humphrey: And we’d sail it at night.
Polanchyck: So your first date was on a boat?
Humphrey: Yeah we went sailing on this boat out at Carter Lake; it’s near the airport in Omaha
right next to the Missouri River because the airport is right there next to the river in Omaha. And
that’s the way we met.
Polanchyck: And you got married in what year?
Humphrey: 49’. Last year was 60 years, 61 [years] now. We got married on my parent’s 25th
anniversary on August 16th. That was my mother’s suggestion and we went along with it. Then
after that he [her husband] went off to college. Had a honeymoon then set off to Kansas State.
That was our first home, it worked out. My mother always thought it would be nice that when
they had their 50th we’d have our 25th, but my father didn’t live for them to have a 50th
[anniversary]. He died of a massive heart attack in ‘72 I guess it was. My mother took my
brother and his wife and their son and my sister and us and then two close friends to dinner at
some nice restaurant it was summer time when we went out there to visit her and so she took us
all out to dinner on our anniversary. That was our celebration for our 25th; I said it would have
been their 50th. Now her parents did have a 50th anniversary which was kind of unusual. It was
23
during the time I was in nurses training that they had their 50th anniversary, her parents. And I
remember, and I tell people this story, is that I was in nurses training in Omaha and they lived in
north east Nebraska not too far from Wisner and they had their wedding anniversary in March,
they celebrated it on the actual date, they had a dinner at the church for the people and family
and all ten of the children came home. Maybe their spouses didn’t come, they were working or
something, but all were there and then grandchildren, like myself, that could come and I
remember that I went to my nursing supervisor and I said could I have this particular day off, to
go because I had to go on a bus to my parents. They had a dinner at the church for just the family
and then they had an open house at their house where they had punch and cookies and put out the
word in their town for people to drop in, and come give their congratulations, and this nurse
supervisor I had, I said to her what I wanted to do. I wanted to go to my grandparents 50th
anniversary party and she said, “by all means, it isn’t often you get to celebrate a 50th wedding
anniversary” and I have thought of that so many times cause now, 50th anniversaries are a dime a
dozen, you read it in the paper all the time now, 50 and 60 year, we just had our 60th, every so
often I see in the paper, maybe in the obituary someone just celebrated their 63rd or 64th. So that
had just stuck in my mind because you didn’t hear about people having a 50th wedding
anniversary it just didn’t happen. And this would have been 44’ or 45’ when they had theirs. So
that’s the way it goes. So what else can I tell you?
Polanchyck: I do want to ask, when the war ended, did you feel relief or notice any significant
changes where you were living? Because I know when major events happen, I know exactly
where I was when 9/11 happened, so I just want to get that, do you remember the exact moment
when you heard the war ended? Or the relief you felt?
24
Humphrey: I guess I was just out of high school and stuff like that. I had graduated in 44’ and it
was all kind of a jubilant time and people were relieved it was over and the troops were coming
home, people were coming home. You knew you were going to get back to a normal family life.
My dad he got out of the service and set up this veterinary practice in Wisner and his last
assignment was at an army camp and Camp Ellis in Galesburg, Illinois I remember that, that was
his last assignment.
Polanchyck: Were you ever worried that he was going to get sent overseas?
Humphrey: It never occurred to me, about him going overseas, that he would have to do that. I
had some cousins that maybe were in the service and I can’t tell you were they were or if they
were ever endangered, or worried about them getting shot at or something. See I didn’t know
him when he was going through his time, then I really would have been worried if I had known
him [her husband]. When he was flying, being a pilot, being shot at over Germany.
Marcus Humphrey: I didn’t worry about things then.
Humphrey: No, she was asking me if I worried and I said if I had known you then I probably
would have been worried.
Marcus Humphrey: Oh, right!
Humphrey: And she just wants to know if I was worried and I can’t think…
Polanchyck: Was it just the way of life?
Humphrey: It was the way of life; I don’t think that I was really worried that we were going to
get bombed or get beat or something like that. You just went along with it and you didn’t have
all the stuff you can see now, you didn’t have the T.V., you could watch the news at night and
see this many people, like we are watching Iraq and Afghanistan. Every night there is something
that’s happened over there. We had radios, but the T.V. wasn’t a thing at home where you could
25
sit at home and watch it and worry that you could get beat. The German or Japanese rule,
[laughs]!
Polanchyck: Do you think growing up during such a significant point in history has changed
your outlook on life? And the way you lived the rest of your life after the war ended, and raising
a family, do you think those years…
Humphrey: Made a difference in the way we live?
Polanchyck: Yeah.
Humphrey: No, not really. You just took it a day at a time really, you’re glad that you felt like
you were coming back to a normal life as a family. With my dad being out of the service and
going to school, nurses training.
Polanchyck: More security maybe?
Humphrey: Yeah, you know you didn’t think about, at least I don’t remember thinking about
things like that. Just kind of went with the flow and things seemed to fall into place, you did
what you had to. I went off to nurses training and I didn’t really get to see my sister growing up,
I wasn’t home to see her through. But we’d go home and she’d always be excited to see me. I
can’t think it made a lot of difference, or made me have a bad outlook on life. You just take it a
day at a time. Just figure this is the situation we’re in, this is the way we lived, we had the war
and so many dads were in the service or brothers.
Polanchyck: Would you say you value having everyone at home now, or even in the past 20, 30,
40 years, that you value it more, than most people? Like for myself, I have grown up always in a
secure country, no major wars going on, and nobody in the family, would you value it more than
most people?
Humphrey: Oh you know, I probably do, the fact that we moved from here to there. I have
26
never said I was angry or regretted it. I never got to spend time in one school like my brother did
and my sister. Well my brother had started one school and finished in a different school, he was
in two different schools, where I was in how many different schools. I don’t resent it, but I just
have to say I was here, I was here, I was here, I was here!
Polanchyck: When you were living in Washington D.C. what was life like then?
Humphrey: Life was good, we belonged to a church and got involved with the church and made
friends through church , made friends through our neighbors and through his work, we knew
people through his work, had social life. Tried to do things with our daughter, follow things
through her school and participate with her school things, every year we tried to go see my
parents and make trips to the Midwest.
Polanchyck: And then you moved to Gettysburg in?
Humphrey: ‘88.
Polanchyck: And what have you been doing since then?
Humphrey: I joined a church here belonged to the newcomers club which I think is about to
fold, I guess I’m the type of person that gets involved in things; I like to be around people.
Marcus Humphrey: She just walked out!
Humphrey: Well, I told her I was going to the restroom!
Polanchyck: That’s okay [laughs].
(Stopped tape, while Mrs. Humphrey was in the restroom, no further conversation took place
until I started the tape again.)
Humphrey: So I got involved with the church, and he was a part of the library when the post
office was turned into a library downtown.
Marcus Humphrey: Oh boy I can tell you all about that! I was the clerk of the works down
27
there!
Humphrey: Yeah but they were remodeling it, it had been the post office and playing cards. We
lived down at Lake Heritage, it’s a gated community and they had a fishing club, but you didn’t
have to be a fisherman to belong to it and they had potluck dinners once a month down at the
community center and we made friends through different things we belonged to. So it’s been
good for us, we are only an hour drive from our daughter and we can see them. Or they can come
up here and visit us. Usually now that the grandkids are getting bigger every summer or holiday
we have them for a few days and do things with them. They just like to be here and be with us.
Grandson take walks with him [her husband] or come to movies, they like the movies. You
usually make friends pretty easily when you get involved. It’s a quieter type of life and we try to
do different things. I got started through somebody at Wilson College over in Chambersburg, the
Institute of Retired Persons where in the fall and in the spring, for 8 weeks they have lectures,
three mornings a week, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. They send out a program and you
can pick, and they have had people from Gettysburg College or Dickinson, local people who
have had interesting careers. I really enjoy that. I have got involved going to that. You pay $20 a
thing, and they have four trips, day trips to Washington, they went down to see the terracotta
warriors this week. But I had gone to see them through HACC, and I like to see them over there
so I go to those twice a year, spring and fall. Same type of thing, you go over there and they give
you a continental breakfast and they give you two lectures and then a lunch then one after lunch
and you get to pick subjects that you want to hear, and you see the program and pick something
you like to hear and if it’s not something you’re not interested in you don’t go. Or if you have a
conflict.
Polanchyck: What kind of lectures are you most interested in?
28
Humphrey: Well, like yesterday we went over to see this man, it was the 250th anniversary of
Benjamin Franklins birthday and there is two or three men in the area that do an impersonation
of Ben Franklin and this man happens to live in East Berlin and he came dressed as Ben Franklin
and lectured on Ben Franklin’s life.
Polanchyck: Oh, that is interesting.
Humphrey: Down at HACC there is this Dr. Coons, who works at the main campus in
Harrisburg and whatever he talks about you always want to go hear because he is so animated
about it when he lectures - but he’s talked about Mona Lisa, he’s talked about Rogers and
Hammerstein’s the musical anything when you get the list in the mail and you look at the list of
the lectures that they are going to have, you see his name there I will sign up to listen to
whatever he’s going to talk about. He talked about the first ladies one time. He’s always got a big
repertoire of things to talk about; you want to go hear him talk, because you will enjoy it. He
makes it really enjoyable. Got stories to tell you about things. So we find something to do all the
time. Some people just hibernate and don’t get involved. Go to the majestic sometimes and
Wilson College about 18 years. I read in the paper one time they had these films and dinners so
now we belong and give a little extra money and are called patrons. We’re going to one next
week which will be the last one. They have two in the fall and two in the spring. They are like a
travel log, the lady that is head of conferences over there, to plan a meal you pay for the meal
and the film but the meal corn sides with the country its foods of that country. Whether it be
Korea, France or whatever. So they are in the evenings. Dinner at 6 and film at 7, we get home
by 10 or something. So I think we get involved with a lot of things, a varied life, we’re just not
sitting here twiddling out thumbs thinking what can I do now? Ha-ha.
Polanchyck: Well, I appreciate you sitting down and doing this with me.
29
Humphrey: Have I covered everything!?
Polanchyck: Yes, you have, we have covered everything!
Humphrey: Well, now what will you do with this if I might ask?
Polanchyck: Well, I am actually going to transcribe the entire interview and it’s going to be
everything word for word, and if you want a copy of that I can bring one for you.
Humphrey: Oh yeah! That’d be nice!
Polanchyck: So I am doing that then writing a reflection essay.
Humphrey: Well I hope I have helped you!
Alex: You definitely have. Thank you.
(Interview ends at 4:10 p.m.)